


the air was never sweet enough

by bastardly_deeds



Series: what's new, pussycat? [2]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Catboys & Catgirls, Gen, M/M, Were-Creatures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:40:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23958595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bastardly_deeds/pseuds/bastardly_deeds
Summary: Eddie doesn't want to go into heat again. Bev tries to help him problem-solve. It doesn't go well.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak & Beverly Marsh, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Series: what's new, pussycat? [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1727203
Comments: 3
Kudos: 58





	the air was never sweet enough

**Author's Note:**

> I can't tag "Nonnies Made Me Do It" this time around because I decided to write a sequel all on my own, just because I was thinking about worldbuilding, and also because I love to be sad. I recommend you read the previous fic in the series because otherwise this won't make a heck of a lot of sense. While there's no sexual contact depicted in this fic, previous sexual contact (from the last fic) is referenced. These characters are in high school. If that's something you'd rather not read, please don't read it. 
> 
> A note on how this fic aligns with canon, which I've thought about more since writing the last installment: while Pennywise is around, doing Its thing, It didn't specifically target the Losers (or the Bowers Gang) in the same way; while they were all witness to some minor spookiness, It ate enough other kids that they weren't a priority in '89. They're all starting to forget the specifics of those encounters as they get older even though they're still in Derry. 
> 
> More extensive content warnings in endnote.

Richie doesn’t make any dirty jokes when Eddie comes back to school. Eddie didn’t really think he would, but there’s always a chance, with Richie. (Richie says hi, but doesn’t start a conversation. Doesn’t look at him. Eddie tries to swallow the shame and accept it. He knows why. This way is better than the alternative, anyway.) Stan’s the one who brings it up — just the two of them by their lockers. 

“You smell different,” Stan says. “Were you really sick this time?”

“I’m swearing you to fucking secrecy right now,” Eddie says, leaning in close. He knows his tail is twitching, like it does when he’s anxious or frustrated, but he feels that way often enough that nobody in the hall will see his tail going and assume there’s juicy gossip. Which there is, kind of, maybe.

“Are you gonna make me pinky swear?” Stan says, raising his eyebrows. “We’re not ten anymore.”

“No, shut _up_ , I just really don’t want this getting out.” Eddie is so, so grateful Richie isn’t here, because a ‘letting the cat out of the bag’ joke would be inevitable. (Or it would have been, before all this happened.) He’s less grateful that his mind is so used to Richie’s sense of humor that it supplied him with the joke in absentia. “I was in heat, okay?”

“Oh,” Stan says, rocking back on his heels as he closes his locker. “Shit. I guess you got through it all right?” He looks a little worried. 

“Yeah, fine, don’t worry about it,” Eddie mumbles. “But keep it to yourself, okay?”

“Of course,” Stan says. He swings his backpack over his shoulder with less care than usual and narrowly misses a girl walking by. “That probably means I’ll get mine soon, heat or rut. I’ve heard it happens that way when you spend a lot of time with people.” 

“Shit,” Eddie says. He falls into step beside Stan. “You think I should tell Mike, too?”

“Maybe,” Stan says. “But I think he’ll be okay either way. It’s not like he was to worry about it coming on while he’s at school.” 

Certain things are understood between Eddie and Stan. Group dynamics had shifted at the start of high school: Bowers started paying more attention to the two of them. It’s the hybrid thing, no doubt about that. Of the two of them, Eddie remains the easier target. Stan’s gotten taller and leaner. He has a good poker face. The stereotypes about vulpine hybrids work in his favor; people think he’s cold and calculating instead of a neurotic little weirdo just because he knows when to keep his mouth shut. And it’s better that way. Eddie knows he’s the better-equipped to actually deal with Bowers. Where Eddie’s fight-or-flight reflex has always been finely tuned to _flight_ when there’s real danger, Stan freezes up. The less attention Bowers pays him, the better. 

Bill and Ben and sometimes Richie talk about how much they wish Mike went to school with them. Stan and Eddie know why it’s a good thing he doesn’t. However much Bowers might have it out for the Losers within his immediate reach, there’s no comparison to how much he hates Mike. The fact that Mike’s a hybrid, too, means he’d be in even more danger. Bowers probably would have sexmurdered him by now. 

Bev gets it, too, even though she’s not a hybrid. She has her own obsessive bully, though as far as Eddie knows, Gretta hasn’t ever tried to do anything that could realistically kill Bev. And there’s more to it, too: something under the surface that Eddie can’t see, but it makes ripples he can. 

The first time any of them saw what Bev looked like when she shifted was the summer of 1989. They were all at the quarry, and Richie — with his typical lack of tact — asked her what her other form was. 

“Is it ugly?” he said. “Is that why you never shift around us?” 

“I only shift at home,” Bev said. She looked out over the water then, like maybe she was above the question, or maybe she didn’t want to have to look at any of them when she said it. “And only when I can’t help it.” Most shifters could change form at will, as they got older, but there were certain times they didn’t have a choice. The movement of celestial bodies meant the movement of bones under skin. It had always sounded complicated to Eddie, and kind of scary. 

“It hurts less the muh-more you do it,” Bill said. 

“Yeah, and your joints aren’t as stiff afterwards,” Ben agreed. “I used to dread it, you know? But now I don’t.” Bev looked over at him, frowning slightly, like she was trying to decide whether to believe him. He smiled encouragingly. She frowned more deeply, but stood up. 

“Okay,” she said. “But nobody looks.” 

“Nothing we haven’t seen before,” Richie said. Bev elbowed him lightly as she walked past, away from the group. 

“As _if_ ,” Stan muttered. They were all turning to face the water. Eddie closed his eyes for good measure. 

“I think he meant the shifting part,” Mike said. Even Eddie had seen that: Bill and Richie weren’t shy about doing it in front of him and Stan, though Eddie didn’t like to look right at them while it was happening. He was sort of glad Bev asked them all not to look. It meant nobody would tease him for being squeamish. 

It wasn’t squeamishness, exactly. He knew it was normal, it was natural, shifters’ bodies were made to do it, but it _looked_ excruciating. Even the sounds were bad. Behind him, he heard a sharp pained gasp that made him flinch, and then the creak-crack of joints reshaping themselves. Eddie counted back from sixty just to be sure before he turned around. He opened his eyes to see a wildcat, tawny-furred and spotted. Her ears weren’t flat to her head, but they twitched back; she had turned the broad side of her body toward them, trying to make herself look bigger. She was scared. Shifters got confused, sometimes, in the first little while after changing forms. Eddie crouched down. People looming over her couldn’t be helping. 

“It’s just us, Bev,” he said. “You’re okay.” She looked steadily at him and started to relax. His tail and ears made his body language the easiest for her to read. She approached him cautiously, though she probably recognized him by now. Eddie kept still. His mother made a point of saying that shifters were dangerous; that when they were animals, they were _really_ animals, with teeth and claws and strength a hybrid couldn’t compete with. He found he wasn’t scared, though, when she was up close. It was Bev, even if she looked different. She rubbed her cheek against his. 

“That’s the cutest fucking shit I’ve ever seen,” Richie said, somewhere off to the side. 

“Shut _up_ ,” Eddie said, but quietly, because he was enjoying the closeness and didn’t want to ruin it. “We’re the cat club now and you’re not invited.” Bev put her front paws on his shoulder and stretched up to peer over his head at the others. Eddie fell back onto his butt when she did. Even though she was cat-shaped, she was still Bev-sized — conservation of mass — so she was bigger than him either way. She licked at his ear once, teasing or maybe apologizing. 

“She’s beautiful,” Ben said. 

“She can also understand what you’re saying,” Stan said drily. Eddie looked over in time to see Ben blush. 

“I know, I’m just _saying_ , Richie was asking before if her other form was ugly and. It’s not.” 

Bev put her front paws back on the ground and rubbed her face against Eddie’s shoulder before scoping out a nice flat rock where she could lie in the sun. Maybe she never had before, Eddie realized with a pang; if she’d only ever shifted indoors, this could be the first time she’d ever felt sun on her fur. Then, of course, Richie broke the pensive mood by stripping down and shifting, too, with the excuse that it wasn’t fair to Bev if she was the only one in her other form and they were all staring at her. 

That whole summer had been strange. Thinking about it now is like looking through a frosted windowpane. Certain memories flicker and turn insubstantial, like a heat mirage; extremes he can’t quite touch. Bits and pieces of what brought them together are ceasing to make sense the older he gets because of their impossibility, nightmare flashes he’d write off as imagined if they’d happened any less recently — 

But what else could they be? 

Anyway, now Eddie has the Losers Club and the much smaller cat club, a sort of sub-group comprised of him and Bev. The sacred bond of the cat club is what ensures Eddie doesn’t protest more than half-heartedly when Bev joins him in the hammock in the clubhouse after school. Her aunt is pretty cool and doesn’t ask what she does in the afternoon as long as she’s home by dinner; Eddie’s mom probably thinks he’s been abducted by aliens but he really, really doesn’t want to be alone with her right now. He’ll take the lecture later. It’s the lesser evil. 

“What’s new, pussycat?” Bev says with a little grin. She knows she’s the only one who can say that to him without getting a tirade in response. 

“Nothing much,” Eddie says, trying for casual and apparently missing by a mile. 

“Seriously,” Bev says. “Are you okay?” She has her arms folded across Eddie’s chest and her chin resting atop them. It wouldn’t be easy to make an escape out from under her. 

“Jesus, I might as well say it on the morning announcements at this point, Stan made me talk about it, too,” Eddie says, all in a rush. Bev doesn’t ask what he’s talking about. She knows she doesn’t have to. If he’s made it this far, he’ll tell her. He takes a deep breath so he can say the rest of it as fast as possible, too. “I was out of school because I had my first heat and it was bad and I never want to have one again.” If his tail wasn’t trapped under his legs and Bev’s, it would be lashing back and forth right now. Bev sits up, eases off him, retreats to the other side of the hammock as much as space allows.

“Eddie, what happened?” she says. 

“I don’t know,” Eddie says, and what he means is that he doesn’t know how to talk about it. 

“You don’t _know_?” Bev repeats. “Where were you?”

“At home,” Eddie says. “My mom, she —” She what? Tied him to his bed and put her fingers inside him? Said she was just checking that nothing was wrong, that the plug wouldn’t be too big? He hadn’t asked her to stop; maybe she’d been telling the truth. But talking to _her_ about it seems like even more of an impossible task than telling Bev about it now. “It was just a lot to deal with,” Eddie says, after a long tense moment of failing to put any of it into words. “Another excuse to keep me inside.” 

“Inside, at home, is probably the safest place to be,” Bev says. “Or it should be.” She crosses her arms and slouches back a little, making herself smaller. “What do you want to do about it?”

“There has to be some way to make it stop happening,” Eddie says. 

“They have medication for that, I think,” Bev says. Eddie shakes his head.

“I can’t go to a doctor without my mom,” he says. “I’m too young. And even if it’s over-the-counter, you know Gretta’s at the pharmacy all the time. The whole school would find out.” Bev grimaces sympathetically. 

“And asking the school nurse about it is a no-go, obviously,” she says. Eddie nods; she gets it. Even if the rumors about her were wrong, she knows how they spread. “There has to be something else. I mean, it’s not like this is a new problem. Maybe there’s something homeopathic that will help. My aunt gives me chamomile tea when I feel nauseous, sometimes. Or mint to help me sleep.”

“You’re right,” Eddie says. Fuck, how stupid was he not to think of it until now? As if he hasn’t been drinking mint tea his whole life when he gets too wound up. “Do you know if she has any books about it?” Bev’s aunt seems like the type of person who might. One of those shifters who goes to wilderness retreats and frolicks in the woods in her other form. Richie has referred to her in the past as ‘one of those crunchy-granola hippie types.’ 

“I can check,” Bev says. “And even if she doesn’t, the library probably has books about it.” Eddie wrinkles his nose and shakes his head. He doesn’t want his name attached to that in the card catalog records, just in case his mom manages to bully one of the librarians like she has all of his doctors. Bev uncurls a little and smiles. 

“We’ll keep that as Plan B, then.” 

Eddie has to wait two days before Bev brings him a dogeared paperback, helpfully bookmarked. It’s not a recipe, exactly, but there’s a paragraph in the middle of the page saying that some almanacs from the early part of the century swore by an infusion of yarrow, meadowsweet, and feverfew. He’s a little worried — infusions are an IV thing, right? But when he catches Bev in the hall before lunch to anxiously whisper that he’s not ready to commit to any non-sterile homebrew IV fluid, she assures him that’s an old-fashioned way of saying they used it to make an herbal tea. Bev has another book in her backpack about local plants, this one from the school library. They look over it together after school. 

“It’s even the right time of year,” Bev says. “Luck’s on our side, here, though we might have to raid a couple gardens. We can pick extra and dry it. They must’ve done that, right? To get them through the winter?” 

“Yeah,” Eddie says, excited and relieved in equal measure. “Do you think I should drink it every day?” 

“I guess if they’re safe, it can’t hurt,” Bev says. Her smile is a little more cautious. She tucks the plant book back into her backpack and sighs. “I know it’s stupid, but I wish I could ask my aunt about this.” 

“You think she’d tell somebody?” Eddie says, feeling his excitement ebb. 

“I think she’d want to know why you’re so eager to stop having heats instead of taking it as a medical excuse to stay home from school, like most kids our age,” Bev says. She hesitates, as if deciding how best to say something. “She’s not really afraid of tough conversations.” 

“There’s more than one reason,” Eddie says. It’s not about just his mom. It’s about what could happen with Bowers. And more than he really wants to admit, it’s about what _did_ happen with Richie, too. He wants to keep things between them from becoming more complicated than they already have. Richie’s been keeping his distance since Eddie came back to school — not enough for anyone else to notice, definitely not avoiding him, after those first few awkward hours. But Richie’s not touching him much, either. Not going out of his way to spend time with him the way he usually does. 

“We don’t have to talk about it,” Bev says. “I’m not going to make you tell me.” 

“Thanks, Bev,” Eddie says. She nudges her shoulder with his. 

“No worries, Eds,” she says. “You want to go on a little nature walk?” 

The yarrow and meadowsweet are easier to find than the feverfew, which they actually do have to pick out of somebody’s yard. It looks sort of like little daisies. Bev says chamomile looks kind of like a daisy, too, though the petals are even smaller. (Eddie has only ever seen chamomile in teabag form.) They don’t take too much feverfew. Maybe they’ll find more somewhere else; they really only need enough to try it once, for now. Yarrow grows with lots of little yellow flowers all in a tight bunch, convenient for picking, and meadowsweet in big sprays of tiny, lacy white flowers. Anyone who didn’t know better might think Eddie and Bev were on a date, carrying a bouquet between them. And, hey, if any rumor’s going to get started this week, it may as well be this one. It might even improve their respective reputations. 

They stop on the sidewalk in front of Bev’s house. It’s only a couple of blocks from Eddie’s: not the nicest neighborhood, but not the poorest, either. It probably seems like a palace after the shitty apartment where she’d lived before, though Eddie was only ever inside once. (Summer of ‘89. The details are fuzzy, like so many from that summer.) 

“You want to wait and do this some other time?” Bev says. 

“What, you think I’m gonna chicken out?” Eddie says. 

“Not a chance,” she says bracingly. “Just in case you wanted more time to think it over.” Eddie shakes his head, determined. 

“No time like the present,” he says. “Anyway, your aunt won’t be home until dinner, right?”

“She gets home a little after five,” Bev says. “If you decide to stay for dinner, she wouldn’t mind. Most recipes in magazines are sized for four people. We always have leftovers.” 

“My mom wouldn’t like it,” Eddie says. “You know how she is.” Bev’s face makes a complicated expression, sort of worried-sad-scared-sympathetic. Eddie hates it. He wishes she were in her other form right now; they’re always better at communicating without words when she is. Though maybe that’s just necessity. Then the expression is gone, replaced by simple determination. 

“Okay,” Bev says. “We’ll make the tea and do some homework and you’ll be home before my aunt even starts cooking.” 

Eddie’s still kind of in trouble from hanging out with her in the clubhouse for so long a couple days ago. His mom had made a fuss. Maybe she’d sent him back to school too soon, what if some pervert had smelled his heat and abducted him — 

He told her he was fine and went up to his room, and she’d let him. But later she made some vague, sinister comments about how some young people reacted badly to their first heat or rut and ended up needing _treatment_ , and she hoped that wasn’t the case with him. If this tea works, though, that’s another problem solved. She won’t have anything to hold over him. 

Eddie gets set up with his trigonometry homework at the dining room table while Bev puts the kettle on. It’s hard to concentrate. He’s thinking about how he won’t know if the tea has worked until either it has or it hasn’t, which means _months_ more. He’s thinking about how they still don’t know how much of any of the plants to put in. Equal parts? Or did the book list them in descending order of importance? If they don’t use enough of something, it won’t work; if they use too much, could it make him sick? Almost anything is toxic if you have too much of it. Eddie’s heard stories about people in marathons going to the hospital because they drank too much _water_. 

He only has two math problems done when the kettle whistles, and then he stands up so fast he almost knocks his chair over. Bev gives him a knowing look and stands up, too. She turns down the heat under the kettle so it stops whistling but the water will stay hot, and then they look at the plants they’d left in three bunches on the counter.

“One sprig of each?” she suggests. 

“Yeah,” Eddie says, glad to not be the one making the call. He nods decisively. Amazing how much a plan of action does to calm his anxiety, even if he doesn’t know if it’s a good plan. “That sounds good.”

Bev puts a roughly equal-looking amount of each in a mug. She’s reaching for the kettle when something else occurs to Eddie.

“Wait, wait,” he says. “We should rinse them off first.” He takes the stalks from the mug and holds them under the tap for a few seconds. It might not do much, but at least he’s less likely to ingest any bugs this way. Bev pours the hot water over the plants once they’re back in the mug, and then they both stare at it for a few seconds. “Any idea how long we wait?” 

“Nope,” Bev says, popping the ‘p.’ “Not a clue. But teabags are, what, three to five minutes? I can set a timer.” There’s one shaped like an egg sitting on the counter, and she twists it around to five minutes. They both stare at _that_ for a few seconds, too. “I don’t know about you, but I’m not feeling super focused on _A Tale of Two Cities_. Want to watch TV?” 

“Yes,” Eddie says. “Yeah, definitely.” Not that he’s going to absorb any of that, either, but nobody’s going to quiz him on reruns of _The Brady Bunch_. It’s mostly commercials anyway. Bev fiddles with her bracelets. Eddie picks at the cushions. They both jump up when the timer dings, then look at each other. Bev laughs first, covering her mouth with her hand. Eddie laughs a little, too. “We really need more exciting hobbies, huh?” 

Eddie has to use both a spoon and a fork to fish out the plant bits, and there are still a few floating in the brew. He takes a sip. 

“What’s the verdict?” Bev says. 

“Tastes like shit,” Eddie says, to make her laugh again. “No, I mean, it just takes like I’m chewing leaves. I don’t know. It’s still too hot to really taste it.” His mom would put an ice cube in it for him, but he can’t ask for that at someone else’s house. 

“There’s honey in the cupboard, if you think that would help,” Bev says. Eddie adds a careful teaspoonful and leaves the tea on the table to cool a little while he tries to concentrate on his math homework. Sine, cosine, tangent. He focuses for long enough that the tea is a slightly more drinkable temperature next time he tries to sip it. He downs the contents of the mug in a few long swallows. It still tastes weird and grassy, though the honey helps. Bev smiles at him over her Dickens. It’s good. It’s fine. He gets back to work and has half the assigned problems done and it’s all smooth sailing.

Then he stands up. 

“Eddie?”

The room tilts around him. His stomach clenches. 

“Eddie, are you okay?” 

He makes it the few steps to the sink before throwing up. Easier to clean that way, he thinks. 

“Oh my god. Eddie, sit down, let me just —” 

He tries to cling to the edge of the counter, but it doesn’t help anchor him. The world goes gray at the edges, then black. His field of vision narrows. He tries to say he’s sorry and doesn’t know if the words make it out. 

Eddie resurfaces to consciousness slowly. He’s under something heavy. Familiar texture. He works his fingers into it: a crocheted afghan. Or maybe two of them, with how pleasantly smothered he feels. There are quiet voices in another room. He opens his eyes, tugs the blankets down enough to look around. Still at Bev’s aunt’s house. Voices in the next room might mean she’s home, might mean Bev had to tell her, might mean somebody knows he’s reacting badly to having his first heat. He doesn’t know what happens after that. Being sent away, probably. Maybe he can slip out before anyone notices. He eases himself into a sitting position and immediately regrets it. He’s dizzy, his head is pounding…

“Shit, is he up?” That’s not Bev’s aunt. Immediately upon having this realization, Eddie makes a grab for a glass bowl of potpourri on the coffee table. He retches into it. Not much comes up. “Yep. Okay. Hey, Eddie, you want us to take you to a hospital?” 

“No,” Eddie chokes out. 

“Maybe it isn’t as bad as we thought,” Ben says. He sounds hopeful, though not entirely convinced.

“You didn’t see him,” Bev says sharply. “He looked like he was having a _seizure_. I thought he was _dying_.” 

“Then you should have called an ambulance,” Stan says. “Not us.” Oh, Jesus. How many of them are here? Eddie doesn’t want anyone else to see him like this. He puts the extremely gross potpourri back on the coffee table and sinks to his knees in front of the couch. 

“I checked his pulse and his breathing,” Bev says. “He didn’t want doctors involved.”

“Obviously,” Bill says, quiet and severe. “Or he wuh-wouldn’t have done something this _stupid_. I still can’t believe you helped him.” Eddie hears the tap running and the footsteps across linoleum, then carpet. Ben peers around the side of the couch. 

“Hey, you want something to drink?” he says, and holds out a glass of water. Eddie feels his ears pin back, fights the urge to bare his teeth and hope Ben takes the hint to leave him alone. Ben doesn’t deserve that. So Eddie nods. Ben sets the glass gently on the coffee table. “You feeling okay?” 

Eddie shakes his head. “Not great,” he croaks. 

“Anything I can do?” Ben says. 

“Please don’t be mad at me,” Eddie says. He hates how small his voice sounds, but at least he isn’t crying. He feels fragile in a way he rarely does; he hates that more than anything else. Even being in heat hadn’t been this bad, for all the bullshit that came along with it. Ben’s expression crumples and he kneels beside Eddie. 

“Nobody’s _mad_ ,” Ben says. 

“Stan is,” Eddie says. “Bill is.” Ben shakes his head. 

“We’re all just worried,” Ben insists. There’s a sudden rush of noise: a bike clattering to pavement, sneaker soles slapping against sidewalk-steps-porch, and then the screen door slamming open. Eddie presses himself back against the couch without thinking about it, squeezing his eyes shut. 

“How’s Eddie?” Mike says from the entryway. 

“Uh,” Ben says quietly. Gesturing at him, probably. 

“Oh, what —” 

“Eddie!” 

“Is he —” 

“Guys, come on, don’t crowd him,” Richie’s voice cuts through the commotion. “Eddie? You gonna throw up again?” Eddie shakes his head. “You want to lay back down on the couch?” Eddie nods. He moves slowly, carefully, not opening his eyes until he can feel the cushions against his back, half-reclining. 

“So did Bev tell all of you?” he says. He curls his fingers into the afghans again as he pulls them across his lap. 

“She said you were trying some kind of herbal remedy,” Bill says. “She duh-didn’t say what you were trying to fix.” Eddie looks up and sees Bill frowning. Sees _everybody_ frowning, some more guilty or more worried or more angry. But nobody’s going to let this slide. 

“I can make an educated guess,” Stan says. Eddie shakes his head slightly, trying to dissuade him. Stan’s frown settles into a hard, thin line. “Come on, Eddie, you were going to tell Mike anyway.” 

“Fine!” Eddie says. The word bursts out of him, hot anger burning in its wake. “You all want to know so fucking bad? I went into heat. That’s why I wasn’t at school. It was the worst two days of my life so far —” (this tastes like a lie in his mouth, worse than the tea, though he means it) “— and I never want to go through it again. Okay? Is that what you wanted to hear?” He’s shouting. He knows he is. His head hurts and his stomach hurts and he doesn’t know what to do about any of it. 

Richie looks like Eddie slapped him. Eddie doesn’t want to take anything back; he meant what he said. But he doesn’t want to say anything to Richie in front of everyone else that might make them respect him less. 

“Were you trying to kill yourself?” Mike says, very quietly. It’s like all the air goes out of the room.

“What?” Bev says. She looks horrified. Like she might cry, maybe, even thought she knows that isn’t what happened. 

“I looked on the counter,” Mike says. “When I was coming around behind the couch. Tansy can kill you.” 

“We didn’t pick any of that,” Eddie starts to say, but Mike cuts him off. 

“You _did_ ,” Mike says. “The yellow flowers, in clusters. I know what they look like. My grandma says that stuff is really poisonous.” He takes a shuddering breath. “We used to have some growing near the house, but she dug it up and planted it out by a shed because I kept sticking stuff in my mouth when I was little.” It’s a testament to the seriousness of the situation that Richie doesn’t have anything to say to that. 

“I thought that was yarrow,” Eddie says. Mike shakes his head. “Shit.” Ben passes him the glass of water on the table, and Eddie sips it carefully. His mouth still tastes like bile.

“Where did you hear about this, anyway?” Ben says. 

“In a book,” Eddie says after a few more sips. 

“What’s it supposed to do?” Ben says. “Does it, I mean. Are you going to be infertile?” 

“It just said people used these plants to stop having heats,” Eddie says. “I didn’t really think about what that meant.” 

“Yeah,” Stan says. “It’s pretty obvious you weren’t thinking.” 

“Can you give me a break for five fucking seconds here, Stan?” Eddie says. The glass in his hand shakes. He sets it down on the coffee table. “I get it. Okay? But you also don’t know what it’s like.” 

“So tell me,” Stan says. “I’m going to have to find out on my own soon anyway, right?” His voice cracks a little. He’s worried, too. That, more than anything, makes Eddie want to try to explain.

“It hurts,” Eddie says. There had been a rolling ache in his lower abdomen. The plug helped a little, but nothing had really made it go away until… Well. Until Richie. “You’re really, um. Aroused? But you can’t actually get off without help.” He swallows thickly. “You want things you don’t normally want. It’s like you’re going crazy.” 

Before Richie, he’d been squirming against the sheets, trying to somehow work the plug deeper, thinking about getting fucked by anyone and everyone who happened to come to mind — even Bowers. Bowers, who probably would have fucked him until he passed out and then kept going, and left him naked somewhere on the side of the road when he was tired of him. Eddie doesn’t want that. He doesn’t want anything _like_ that. But he would have taken it, and maybe even been grateful for it, at the time. 

“It’s — it’s just another way my mom can control me,” Eddie says. “Maybe it’ll be better for you. I don’t know.” 

“Did something happen?” Bill says. “Eddie?” 

Richie makes a gasping, sobbing noise and starts toward the door. 

“Oh, what the fuck,” Stan mutters. He tries to catch Richie by the elbow, misses by inches, and follows him out onto the porch. There’s a long moment of general bewildered staring before anyone speaks. 

“We should probably let you rest anyway,” Ben says. “If you think he’ll be okay?” He looks to Mike for confirmation. Mike shrugs. 

“I think if he’s awake now, he’ll be fine,” Mike says. “But I’m not really an expert. And you should probably still mention it, next time you go to the doctor. Just in case.” 

“If I can get my mom out of the room long enough to say something, I will,” Eddie says. Mike frowns, but nods. 

“I don’t think you should go home,” Bev says. Her eyes are red-rimmed and glassy, like she’s trying not to cry.

“What, like ever?” Eddie says. As much as the idea appeals to him right now, it doesn’t seem realistic. 

“At least for tonight,” Bev says. 

“Who would his mom be the least mad at him for staying over with?” Ben says. 

“Me, puh-probably,” Bill says. 

“So Eddie should call her from here and say he’s at your house and got invited to stay for dinner,” Ben says. “Later he can call and say you were working on a project or something and lost track of time, so he’s staying over. If she calls Bill’s house, Bill can intercept and say Eddie can’t come to the phone. If she’s really insistent, you can say he’ll call right back, and then you can call over _here_ and Eddie can call her. Right?” 

“Who knew we had a criminal mastermind around?” Eddie says, which at least gets Ben to smile. 

“It’s a good plan,” Bill agrees. “Muh-maybe the first good plan anyone here has had all day.”

“Oh, fuck _off_ , Bill,” Eddie says, but there isn’t much force behind it. It hurts that Bill doesn’t understand, though that was the reason Eddie kept it to himself in the first place, wasn’t it? He knew they wouldn’t. He’s lucky that Bev did. (That Richie had, even if only for a little while.) 

“I can’t talk to you about this right now,” Bill says. “I’ll see you later. I hope you feel better.” 

“Fine,” Eddie says shortly. “Thanks.” Ben and Mike exchange a look. 

“Uh, I guess we should get going, too,” Ben says. “Mike, you want to head to the library?”

“Yeah,” Mike says, visibly relieved. “I’ve got some reading to do.” 

“Give us a call if you need anything,” Ben says. “Bev has our numbers, if you don’t have them memorized. 

“Obviously,” Bill says, a little meanly. Ben and Mike exchange another glance but file out after him. Eddie takes another sip of water and waits for Bev to say something. When she doesn’t, he clears his throat. 

“I’m sorry about the potpourri,” he says. “And the sink.” Bev nods, shrugs, and sits at the other end of the couch. Neither of them says anything for a while, settling into the new quiet in the house. It’s different than it was before. 

“My mom committed suicide,” Bev says. 

“Oh my god,” Eddie says reflexively, horrified. 

“I know it wasn’t my fault,” she says, “but if you died, that would have been. Do you get that?” 

“I’m sorry,” Eddie says. His throat feels like it’s closing up — not like asthma, but like it’s trying to swallow the words back down. 

“Me too,” Bev says. She reaches across the couch to take his hand in hers, and grips it tightly. “I’m glad you’re okay. And we’ll find some other way to fix this.” 

“Thanks,” Eddie says, then, “I’m sorry.” Once more for good measure. 

“Ben was right, you should try to rest,” Bev says. She lets his hand go and stands up. “I’ll wake you up for dinner.” 

Eddie doesn’t mean to fall asleep. He doesn’t think he will; there’s too much rattling around in his head, and his stomach is making weird gurgling noises. But the next thing he knows he’s burrowed completely under the blankets, and there’s a hand gently shaking his shoulder. He finds the edge of the blanket and pulls it back. 

“Do you feel like you can eat anything?” Bev says. “Aunt Nora just made soup. I told her you weren’t feeling well and she thought it might be calm enough.” 

“Thank you, Miss Strand,” Eddie says, looking over the back of the couch. He winces. His voice sounds awful. That’ll probably help sell the story about him being sick, at least. 

“You sure you don’t just want to go home, Eddie?” Nora Strand says. Her hair is blonder than Bev’s but still reddish, hanging down her back in a loose braid. Her smile is kind. Her eyes are incisive.

“No thanks,” Eddie says. 

“Well, that’s alright,” Nora says amiably. “You think you can make it to the table?” Eddie feels himself flush, ashamed, and stands too quickly just to be contrary. He has to hold onto Bev’s arm to keep from overbalancing and falling. His equilibrium isn’t quite right. 

“Yes,” Eddie says. Nora watches him the whole way. 

There isn’t much talk during dinner except that Bev tells him she put his homework in his backpack when she set the table. She and her aunt must have gotten the how-was-your-day talk out of the way while Eddie was asleep. The soup is probably good, but there’s some spinach or maybe escarole in it, and leaves floating in liquid doesn’t appeal to him very much right now. He eats a little. Mostly he drinks more water. They wave off his offer of helping clear the table, and he goes back to sitting on the couch until Nora asks him if he’d like to give his mother a call and check in. He starts to say no, until she says their phone is down the hall. 

Eddie doesn’t call his mother. He calls Richie. It’s Richie’s mom who picks up, and passes the phone off before Eddie’s even through his standard _hi-Mrs-Tozier-can-I-please-speak-to-Richie_. 

“Please don’t hang up,” Eddie says. 

“Okay,” Richie says. He sounds tired. “I don’t know what I should say. If you don’t want to be friends anymore —” 

“What?” Eddie says. 

“You said you didn’t want what happened,” Richie says. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know it was bad enough that you’d _hurt yourself_ —” 

“I didn’t!” Eddie says, then looks over his shoulder, back down the hall. “I didn’t,” he repeats quietly. “It was an accident. And, Richie… when you came over, that was the only good part of the whole time I was in heat.” The other end of the line is silent. For a moment Eddie’s sure Richie has hung up, until he hears breathing. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that, you can pretend I didn’t, and anyway maybe it’s just the hormones talking, maybe there’s something wrong with me —”

“Eddie,” Richie says. “You — really? It was okay?” 

“It was good,” Eddie says. “I just wish it hadn’t made things weird. I wish you hadn’t seen me like that.” 

“There’s a reason I stick with just my family during the full moon,” Richie says, after another pause that sets Eddie’s heart pounding with worry. “I wouldn’t want you around me then. I think it’s kind of the same thing. It’s still me, but not the me I want people to know.” 

“Yeah,” Eddie sighs, leaning against the wall. “But it’s not a dealbreaker, right?”

“Course not, Eds,” Richie says. “Anyway, we’re like jizz brothers now.” 

“We’re _what?_ ” Eddie hisses. 

“You know, like blood brothers, but with jizz. You got yours on me, I got mine on you. It’s a sacred bond.” Eddie can tell Richie’s bravado is faked, that he’s feeling as awkward about this as Eddie is. But Eddie responds like it’s normal, both because it’s what Richie needs and because he can’t not react.

“Shut the fuck up, Richie, we’re not — I’m not going to repeat that on the phone in someone else’s house.”

“But the f-word’s all good?” 

“Oh my god. Oh my _god_ , Richie.” A little breathless laugh escapes him. “So we’re okay?”

“Yeah, man, we’re okay,” Richie says. 

“And if I can’t find a way to stop having heats…” Eddie waits a beat, seeing if Richie will change the subject. “Do you think you’d help me out again? As a favor?” 

“Glad to,” Richie says, sounding a little strained. “I mean, if that was what it was like when we were both virgins, imagine how good it’ll get with practice. We’ll be sex gods!” 

“I’m sorry about today,” Eddie says. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t know how bad it was,” Richie says. 

“Yeah, well,” Eddie says, and catches himself smiling for the first time in hours. “Nobody’s perfect.”

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for bullying (including sexual menace), sexual abuse of teenagers, accidental poisoning (including descriptions of illness, vomiting), consent issues inherent in the mating cycle trope, brief intrusive sexual fantasies featuring sexual aggression, and mentions of suicide.
> 
> Notes on herbs: while tansy has historically been used medicinally to treat intestinal worms and as an abortifacient, it is highly toxic. Depiction of effects here is not strictly accurate (though convulsions and vomiting are among its possible effects; other possible non-fatal effects include liver and kidney damage). People have also died from trying to use it medicinally. Even with generally less-toxic herbal remedies (like yarrow, feverfew, and meadowsweet), you always want to consult with a professional before taking them medicinally in case of allergies or interactions. 
> 
> Many thanks to [plutonianshores](https://archiveofourown.org/users/plutonianshores) for helping me out with a plotting corner I'd backed myself into and taking a look at this before posting.
> 
> Title from ["There Is A Cure"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yh7A_s0wg2c) by Timber Timbre.


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